


Like A Rainbow With All of the Colors

by RedheadAmongWolves



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Cloud rearranging (it's a thing), Fix-It, Getting Together, God!Tony, Immortal!tony, Infinity Gems, M/M, Natasha Lives, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, hell yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedheadAmongWolves/pseuds/RedheadAmongWolves
Summary: Instead of being overpowered by the gauntlet, Tony becomes a god. To everyone's surprise, not much changes.





	Like A Rainbow With All of the Colors

**Author's Note:**

> Imma say it louder for the people in the back: IMMORTAL TONY STARK
> 
> Thought we could use a little of this i’m still crying
> 
> this started as like a 1500 word drabble and EXPLODED like i have no idea how this happened
> 
> Basically canon divergence as soon as Tony gets the stones in the Iron Man gauntlet and snaps his fingers. And all love to the darling princess Morgan but I’m not the biggest Pepperony supporter so that all kind of did a hand wavy exit stage left, enter stage right some sick ass Stony. But not like, ass Stony. I’m not brave enough to write smut yet what if my family finds this account.

Tony opens his eyes and sees Peter, and he lets out a breath he feels like he’s been holding for five years, because thank whatever higher power is looking down on them, Peter is back. He’s back, he’s real, he’s whole, he’s here, and Tony’ll give the kid another bone-crushing hug in a minute, he swears, and it’ll last a goddamn hour if he has anything to say about it, his body is just super heavy at the moment, give him a sec. God, he could use a nap. 

Peter’s face is tear-streaked, his eyes wide with disbelief, and Pepper and the rest of the Avengers are clustered behind him, staring back at Tony with various looks of bewilderment. 

“Did we win?” Tony asks weakly, and Pepper lets out a sob of a laugh. He gives her the best smile he can right now-- Jesus Christ on a cracker he’s _exhausted_ \-- and tilts his head back against whatever hunk of debris they’ve propped him against. He lets his eyes fall shut again. He feels weird. Underneath the exhaustion. There’s something… new. Different. Maybe it’s just the adrenaline crashing, or maybe--

He slits his eyes open and sees Peter looking down, follows the kid’s gaze to his own hand, to where the metal of the gauntlet and his skin have melded together, red and gold and shiny, to where the infinity stones are sitting snugly in his knuckles, with seemingly no intention of going anywhere anytime soon.

Well, shit.

“Tony?” Steve asks, and fuck, _Steve_ , yet another someone he thought he’d lost but he’s _here,_ and Tony wants to melt into that voice, if that’s possible. He finds Steve’s face in the crowd, bloody and dirt-streaked, blue eyes glittering, putting the space stone to shame. “Are… are you…”

Whatever he’s about to say gets lost, because something explodes into flames behind them, far enough that it can’t reach them but close enough to spook them, Bruce damn near jumping out of his stretchy pants, and Tony finally registers the _wasteland_ they’re currently sitting in. 

“Well, this ain’t a good place to celebrate saving the universe. Again,” Tony wheezes. He doesn’t get so much as a chuckle. “Tough crowd,” he says to Peter, who huffs a startled laugh. 

He manages to lift his hand-- the left one, without the gauntlet-flesh mess currently occupying his right-- and he reaches out to pat Peter on the cheek, slide up to ruffle his hair, before gently pushing him back and away. Pepper takes the kid’s arm and pulls him alongside her, and Tony coughs, gritting his teeth as he shoves himself up, leaning heavily against the-- is that a refrigerator?-- to get a good look at the battlefield. There are a billion Wakandans, Asgardians, he’s pretty sure that’s a tree with a face, spread across the charred landscape, and they’re all staring back at him. Save for the fires crackling, you could probably hear a pin drop.

Steve’s voice slides into Tony’s register again, just Tony’s name, and he sees the man stepping forward, a hand extended, and Tony would love to take it, really, but he’s got something to do first. He shoves himself up on the crumpled fridge and, with every ounce of strength he has left, lifts his right hand. The stones start glowing immediately. 

There’s some kind of aborted warning from Strange, before Tony’s closing his eyes shut tight, picturing the Compound as it was, before a giant alien spaceship took a shit right in the middle of it, and he feels the stones vibrating up the muscles of his arms, through his chest, down his limbs. His teeth shake with the force of it. 

He grabs onto the feeling, zeroes in on it, holds on like a rollercoaster handlebar, and thinks, wills, _repair._ And he waves his hand, because he’s a little too tired to snap. 

There are startled cries from around him, gasps from the Avengers, and he opens his eyes in time to see green grass sprawling out in all directions, clean white marble rebuilding itself like Legos, trees sprouting and growing lush and full in seconds, the sky turning blue again, dotted with fluffy white clouds like one of Morgan’s drawings, before his world goes dark yet again, and he’s falling, falling, falling.  
  
  


He wakes up and Steve—minus the blood, Tony’s brain registers, and dressed in that blue sweater that always made his eyes pop— is staring at him, eyes owlish, elbows on his knees from his perch in a chair next to Tony’s bed. He recognizes the Compound’s medical wing immediately. 

“Hiya, Cap,” he manages, wincing at how rough his voice is. “You holding vigil?”

Much to Tony’s horror, Steve promptly bursts into tears. “Holy shit, Tony, you scared the crap out of us.”

“Language,” Tony retorts half-heartedly, but it’s a whisper lost against Steve’s heaving breaths. “I’m okay, Cap, I’m okay. Are you okay?” This only seems to make Steve cry harder, but he also starts laughing, and Tony’s starting to worry he broke him. 

Steve reaches out, smiling through his tears, and takes Tony’s left hand where it lies on top of the sheets, navigating an IV taped to the back of it. Tony’s right hand is hidden under the blankets, and alarm bells go off distantly in Tony’s head, as to why that’s significant. “I’m okay now,” Steve says, gripping Tony’s fingers. “Tony, I--”

Bruce chooses this moment to bust in. “You’re awake!” he exclaims, and Steve lets go of Tony’s hand, and Tony would scramble to grab Steve’s back if he had the strength. He flexes his fingers against the sheets instead. He’s slowly realizing his whole body feels like it’s made of pins and needles. 

“How long was I out?” Tony asks, searching Steve’s face. 

“A week,” Bruce answers, fiddling with some machines Tony’s hooked up to. The steady beep of his heart rate is unexpectedly reassuring. 

“I don’t think anyone answered my question from, uh, a week ago, so I’ll ask it again, but-- did we win?” 

Bruce grins at him. “Yeah, man. We won. Everyone’s back, and Thanos is dust in the wind.”

“Gotta love Kansas’ eerie ability to soundtrack the apocalypse,” Tony quips. He sees Pepper, Rhodey, Peter, and Happy scurrying towards them through the glass windows of the med bay, and-- is that--

“Is that--” Tony gasps, the heart rate monitor skyrocketing as Natasha comes into view. She beams at Tony, as much as the Russian spy can beam.

Bruce’s eyes go all misty. “She appeared when you fixed the Compound. Guess she was part of you setting us all to rights.”

“Vision is still lost, though,” Steve says quietly. “We think, because of the mind stone--” he peters out. 

And, right. The stones. Tony’s right hand is suddenly all he can feel, tucked under the pale blue sheets, just an innocuous lump beside him. He looks up, meets Steve’s eyes. “Is--”

But Pepper and co. have arrived, and they’re circling Tony’s bed, all reaching hands and excited chatter, and Steve stands up to make room, squeezing Natasha’s shoulder as he skirts past her. “I promised Strange we’d call him when you woke up,” he says to Tony, with a tight smile as Pepper pushes Tony’s hair away from his face. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” And then he’s gone. Natasha takes his place, succeeding in tearing Tony’s eyes from the Steve-shaped emptiness in the doorway. 

After that, things happen in a whirlwind. While they wait for Strange to show up and presumably explain everything with some hand-wavy magic babble that’ll just make Tony’s head hurt more, the others catch Tony up on what he’s missed in the last week. Their loved ones returned, people are settling back into their lives, and there have been celebrations around the world, and the Avengers and New Avengers have been helping rebuild in major cities, the Guardians and Danvers aiding intergalactic cleanup, because Tony’s actual hand-wavy magic move the week before had only encompassed the Compound-- he’d been a little distracted, okay, give him a break!-- and all the while, Tony has half his brain on the conversation and the other half on the weight of his right hand. It doesn’t feel any different, really, but he’s avoiding looking at it, because he knows what he’ll see when he does, and he doesn’t know what it means, or if they’re even out of the woods yet, and why did FRIDAY put Taylor Swift on his workshop playlist, he’ll never get that song out of his head now, where the hell is Strange--

The wizard sweeps in, cape billowing, and orders everyone out, and Tony could kiss him he’s so relieved. He does get a forehead kiss from Pepper as she leaves, telling him she’ll come back as soon as he and Strange have talked. Peter looks like he’s about to start crying again as Rhodey drags him out. 

Bruce stays, because he’s their second best expert on Infinity Stones, at this point. 

“Alright, Wiz,” Tony says to Strange, falling back against the pillows. “What the fuck is happening?”

“Can I see it?” Strange asks, gesturing to Tony’s hidden arm, and Tony exhales shakily. The sheets rustle as he finally pulls his arm into the light.

It looks as he remembered, but also worse. It’s like if the nano suit had frozen mid-encasement, jagged, incomplete stretches of metal sliding into flesh, shining lines like Glo-stick veins extending down from his fingers to his elbow. The repulsor is still nestled in his palm, deactivated, and his fingertips are mostly uncovered, so at least he’s still got fine motor skill work in his future, but he turns his palm away from him and… 

All six stones are still intact, lit with their rainbow of colors from the inside, and nestled deep in the tissue of the gauntlet-hand hybrid. 

“Fuck,” Tony breathes. “That’s not good.”

“On the contrary,” Strange replies, settling on the edge of the bed, leaning in to inspect the stones but careful not to touch. “It’s quite remarkable. The energy from all six stones combined should have killed you instantly, much less have given you time to snap the first time. Instead…” he squints up at Tony, scrutinizing. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” Tony answers truthfully. “But kind of like I just need to sleep for a while. Other than that, there’s this new… buzz, like when the arc reactor is fully charged, but it doesn’t feel… dangerous, or anything.” 

Strange hums thoughtfully. “Either you have some latent alien blood in your ancestor line, which is unlikely, or the stones have chosen you. Without the infinity gauntlet to serve as a conduit, they’ve adopted your whole body as a host instead.” 

Great, Tony has space fleas. “Are they gonna… hop off? Or have I earned myself some new permanent bling?”

“There’s no precedent for this,” Strange says, standing again. “I’ll confer with my peers, but as far as I know, you have been selected for a very significant role. You are the new guardian of the infinity stones.”

The three of them stare at Tony’s hand for a long moment. 

“So what now?” Bruce asks. 

“Now we train,” Strange replies simply. “I will teach you to wield the stones, or at least control them, as best I can, and we monitor for any adverse side effects.”

“Side effects like what?” Tony asks warily. 

“Skin melting, lungs bursting, heart failure, hallucinations, eyeball bleeding,” Strange lists.

“Your bedside manner sucks,” Bruce tells him. 

Strange rolls his eyes and looks back to Tony. “You are the first of your kind, Tony Stark. It’s untrod territory, here.”

Tony holds his hand up to the light, turns it around for the stones to catch the fluorescents. Six little rocks, capable of destroying the universe, or saving it. Fixed to Tony’s knuckles like cheap costume jewelry. Huh. 

“I do like being the first,” Tony says.

He and Pepper agree that while he trains with Strange, it’s probably best if he takes some time away from Morgan to adjust. In addition to unknown side effects, they don’t know if there would be residual effects on humans exposed to the stones, or if the stones themselves are going to explode in a year or a month or tomorrow. They reckon it’s better not to traumatize Morgan if Tony’s eyeballs start bleeding, too, so Pepper goes home and to Stark Industries amidst its rebuild, and Tony has Happy bring a bag of his things back to the Compound, before shooing him off too. 

Natasha heads out to help with cleanup, promising to check in once a day to report how she’s feeling post-soul stone return. Tony’s a little curious what took her place at the bottom of Red Skull’s cliff if the stone is now embedded in Tony’s ring finger, but to be honest, he doesn’t really care. He and Natasha hug for a long time before she sets out. They were at the start of it all, when you think about it. He’s glad they’re both here to finish it. 

Peter, after some major clinging that Tony doesn’t even bother to pretend annoys him, goes back to school, and Rhodey joins Wilson and Barnes wherever they are. Steve doesn’t reappear. 

Tony pushes down on the cold stab of disappointment this brings. Steve is with Wilson and Barnes, too, because Rhodey calls and tells him about what antics Steve gets up to in a week, and his new campaign to keep the Hudson clean enough for the whales. Steve doesn’t call, though. And Tony’s glad Steve seems to be handling things well, but he can’t help but look down at the tesseract blue stone and feel a wave of guilt strong enough to send him stumbling. Tony got his closure with his dad on that base, but Steve… Steve watched his happy ending through window blinds, so close, but just out of reach. No wonder he’s avoiding Tony. Tony resents himself, too. 

So he throws himself into training. When he’d gotten out of Medical he’d found, to everyone’s surprise, he had no cuts or bruises or even any aches post-Thanos. He’s in peak fighting form, almost better than he’s ever been, but he still keeps the nanotech reactor snug on his chest. It’s a safety blanket at this point, but who can blame him. 

He thinks he hears Bruce mention something about extended lifetimes, but Tony’s deciding that’s a bridge he’ll burn when he gets to it. 

In addition to his newfound health, training is made all the more easier by Strange punching them into his fancy fourth dimension. It’s more than a little disconcerting to look down _through_ his own hands and see his prone body underneath him on the gym floor, but they figure this is the safest way to navigate testing the stones without actually activating them. Gotta crawl before you walk. Or, float, before you-- ah, nevermind.

Strange adjusts smoothly to his role as Tony’s new mentor, his time stone now being a part of Tony’s thumb. Tony considers asking him about it, but figures the guy does have powers beyond just the stone, so he’s not entirely out of his yada-yada-Supreme-whatever role. 

Day one, they square off, and Tony’s expecting training wheels, easing into it. This shit erased half the universe, after all. 

“We have to determine the extent of your abilities, and also if they are limited to you, or if others could exploit them were they to subdue you,” Strange says.

“If you tackle me Strange I swear to g-“ Tony’s interrupted by a pouncing flurry of red cape. 

He feels, more than sees, the flare of power surge through his right arm. His fingers splay not unlike activating a repulsor fire, and Strange goes flying through the wall. 

“Shit!” Tony hisses, speeding forward, but Strange is already floating back in, only a little ruffled. “I’m not gonna say you got what you deserved, but,” Tony huffs, breathless. His heart is racing. 

“Very interesting,” Strange says thoughtfully. Doctors, honestly. “The stones reacted to your surprise. They almost seem to want to protect you.” He looks down at himself, straightening his tunic. “But you haven’t caused me any real harm, perhaps because the stones know I am not a true threat to you.” He turns his attention back to Tony. “How do you feel?”

“Peachy.” And he really does feel fine. There’s that buzz, still, and an unnameable _presence_ at the back of his skull that’s been humming since he woke up, but that’s about it. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he’s pretty certain he had barely accessed a sliver of the stones’ capabilities. 

“Let’s try again, but this time with something you’re not afraid of hurting,” Strange says, and they spend the rest of the day running drills with conjured fight dummies and obstacles, and it feels like the old days of the Avengers team, living in the Tower, and Tony half expects to turn and see Steve at a punching bag, or grinning at him as they out-maneuver Nat and Clint, only when he does turn, there’s no one there, and Tony fires at the next dummy a little harder. 

That first night after training, just as Tony is about to fall into a blissful, exhausted sleep, he hears a voice. 

It’s the tiniest whisper. Barely intelligible, and could probably be mistaken for a rustle of wind through a curtain except the windows are closed, and it had sounded close, almost like it’d been whispered directly into his ear, or the back of his brain, loud enough to wake him. He shoots up in bed, and FRIDAY, registering the uptick in his heart rate, raises the lights a fraction, at the ready. 

“FRIDAY?” he calls to her. “Is anyone here?”

“Doctor Strange and Doctor Banner are both asleep in their rooms, boss, and the night staff are on duty in HQ. Do you want me to get someone?” FRIDAY answers easily, and Tony’s neck starts to prickle with sweat.

"No, thank you,” he says, and FRIDAY falls quiet. The whole room is quiet, almost achingly so, and Tony’s starting to wonder if he’d just dreamt it when he hears it again, only this time it’s very clearly in his head, but very obviously not his own thoughts. 

Now that he’s awake, he notes it’s not a voice, exactly, but still something audible and _other_. The hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck stand up on end, goosebumps rising, and suddenly he’s thinking back to flashes of red and a pile of bodies and his vision gets spotty, his breathing getting tighter and tighter, and he’s about to open his mouth to call FRIDAY when suddenly there’s a rainbow of color brightening the room, and he looks down to the gauntlet, where the stones are glowing softly and, he thinks randomly, reassuringly. 

“Is this-- is this you guys?” he asks the stones, disbelief coloring in his voice. He feels a little silly because _of course_ it can’t be the _stones_ , they’re inanimate objects, they can’t… but then, what the hell does he know about what _infinity_ stones can and can’t do? 

The little whisper doesn’t return, but there’s a wave of calm that suddenly crashes through him, comforting him, loosening his shoulders and easing his constricted chest. He knows, inexplicably, that this is the stones’ doing. 

The wave subsides, leaving Tony surprised but still, and he doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do here, so he looks at his hand and says, dumbly, “thanks.” 

He lies back down, and feels something like _you’re welcome_. 

  
He tells Strange about this at breakfast the next morning, and Strange doesn’t look surprised. 

“The extent of the stones’ abilities is unknown,” Strange says around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “The time stone did not speak to me, but perhaps all together, they form a sort of entity, capable of registering and acting on your subconscious. As we saw yesterday, they respond significantly to your own emotions. Have you felt any more of these feelings since last night?”

Tony shakes his head as Bruce comes in with a plate piled with waffles. “No, just that one. I think… I guess I have the sense that they think they spooked me.” 

Strange nods. “I wouldn’t be surprised if their presence in your mind increases as you use them more.”

Sure enough, as training advances, so do the, uh, whisper-feelings. For the first couple weeks they mostly remain little waves of sensation that respond to Tony’s adrenaline or stress, but gradually they begin to make themselves present in response to other feelings, like a renewed burst of energy when Tony finds himself tiring out during drills, or pleased preens not unlike a smug cat when Tony successfully uses the stones to navigate a new obstacle course designed by Strange. 

He knows their training sessions so far are rather basic, but they’re erring on the side of caution, not wanting to accidentally blow a hole in the universe or something. But Tony also has a feeling that a lot of what the stones respond to is _intent_. Right now, he’s still apprehensive as fuck about his new jewelry, and he thinks the stones are letting him ease into them. 

One morning, though, Strange gets called away to do Strange things, and Bruce is away for the weekend at some science/world rehabilitation convention (organized by Stark Industries, thank you very much) and Tony is alone for a blessed, terrifying moment, so he decides to figure out just what the hell he can do.

He hasn’t experimented with anything as dramatic as his Compound-resurrection moment, when he’d been operating on pure instinct, no doubt or hesitation, as he realizes now, fueled by the stones reacting to his own bewilderment at being alive, and flare of protectiveness looking out at the wrecked battlefield and its selfless soldiers. 

Space-jumping to a grassy hill a good few miles from the Compound, he pulls on that feeling again, that desire to help the world heal, coupled with his tamped down frustration at being corralled away from everyone he loves, and the deeper, darker fear at just what the heck is happening to him. He focuses on that feeling until it is all he can think, and he directs that feeling down to the stones, and they start to thrum in answer.

“Alright, guys,” he murmurs. “Let’s get to know each other, shall we?”

It’s a sunny, cloudless day, but Tony raises his hand to the sky and waves his fingers, and suddenly the sky is filling once more with Morgan’s puffy clouds. Tony sucks in a breath and curls his hand into a fist, and the bright blue shifts to a soft lavender, then a vivid orange, and then a deep, inky night. He taps his finger against the sky, and leaves a star with each tap. He waves his hand again, and the moon blooms like a white-petalled flower, over where the sun had been.

He waves his hand again, and everything reverses, until it’s a sunny, cloudless day yet again.

He turns his attention to the ground underneath him, pressing his fingers into the grass, and thinks of Peter, who had sent him a postcard from his class vacation in Italy the day before. It had been a picture of Venice, its buildings surrounded by water, and as Tony watches, water seeps out from under his hands, floods out around him in all directions until he’s sitting in the middle of an ocean, the Compound and himself on little islands, waves sloshing at his shoes. Another wave of his hand, and the water disappears. 

“Damn,” he whistles. The stones preen again in the back of his mind. He thinks they like being a source of creation, rather than destruction.

As he feels them settle in his head, their presence so much stronger than that first rustle, Tony thinks they had been taking their time getting used to him, which makes him wonder if they were in Thanos’ head, too, and what feelings they fed on there, and what they think of Tony, now. He thinks maybe they like him more than Thanos. He knows he would, if he didn’t have to spend eternity in that swollen grape’s crazy brain. And they had called Loki a bag of cats. 

Still, he feels exhaustion wind its way through his bones. He is just a human, after all, and there’s only so much he can handle, even with his new friends running through his system.

He falls back to lie on the grass, his limbs heavy, and stares up at the sky, a short, incredulous laugh escaping him. 

“Damn,” he says again. “And I thought retirement would be peaceful. Like,” he huffs, “golfing.” 

The stones flicker in amusement. 

His little weather experiment had been mostly contained to upstate New York, but it still makes the nightly news, as Tony finds when he turns on the TV that evening for the first time in a month. 

“Five weeks following the defeat of Thanos,” the news anchor says, “we have our first confirmation of what is believed to be Tony Stark’s presence in upstate New York.” She’s a curly-haired woman who Tony remembers had been one of the Vanished, absent from the screen these past five years. She’s positioned next to a cell phone picture of Tony’s purple sky, coloring the distant horizon. “No word has been received from Stark since he heroically fought and killed Thanos along with the other Avengers and their allies,” the reporter continues, “although his representatives at Stark Industries request continued privacy. Speculation soars as to why the engineer, previously a staple in the public eye, has yet to make an appearance, though this unusual weather pattern seems to confirm Stark is well.” 

“Someone was busy, I see,” a voice cuts in behind Tony, and he jumps in his seat on the couch. He whips around to find Strange smirking at him in the doorway. The wizard saunters over. 

“You can summon the night sky at ten in the morning,” Strange says, “but you couldn’t hear me behind you?”

Tony rolls his eyes, sliding over on the cushions for Strange to plop down beside him. Strange kicks his boots up on the coffee table, ignoring when Tony swats at them with the remote. 

“The stones and I had a long conversation today,” Tony tells him. “I can’t do all the things Thanos could, because I’m still just Tony Stark, not half-god or a quarter-alien or whatever, and it takes a heck of a lot out of me to even just change the clouds.” He lifts his right hand, and the stones seem to glitter back at him. “And besides, it’s all mostly intent, isn’t it? And I don’t really have any interest in being a god, to be honest,” Tony says. “I think the stones get that.”

Strange hums in acknowledgement. They sit and watch the news in silence a little longer, updates of Wanda in South America, Natasha in France, Spider-Man swinging through Rome and photobombing the Pope. There’s no report on Steve, and Tony swallows around a lump in his throat. His calls with Rhodey are pretty much the same, quick check ins and updates and brainstorming new plans in the face of the enormous task of straightening out the universe, but still no word from Steve. 

The news concludes and the channel switches to the weather radar, featuring a disgruntled weatherman talking about the morning’s sudden cloud appearance, and Strange stands up, rolling his shoulders to crack his neck with a satisfying _pop_. 

“Well then,” Strange says. “Shall we go to the city tomorrow?”

The stones are a low hum in Tony’s head, feeding off his anxious energy, but he can’t help it, he feels like a livewire as he sits in the backseat of the car, hands in his lap, fingers laced tightly to keep from shaking, gauntlet and flesh tangled together. Happy is driving, and Strange is with him in the back, looking very uncomfortable on the leather seats of the Audi, a picture which is a decent distraction because Tony starts wondering if Strange has even been in a car since he got all, well, strange, because he’s probably used to just portal hopping across the galaxy— which they could have done, all things considered, but Tony wanted to at least have the drive to try and calm his nerves. It isn’t working. Tony opens his mouth to suggest they just turn back and try another day, when he looks out the window and sees them crossing the Henry Hudson into Manhattan.

The city still has wide gashes of rubble and charred buildings cutting through its streets, but with each block of destruction there’s another block being rebuilt, swaths of cranes and scaffolding laden with construction workers. Mother Nature had snuck her way back into the city limits during the past five years, and instead of tearing down the new vines and buds in the wake of its inhabitants returning, there are dozens of people working away at creating new garden spaces and parks. 

Tony watches this all out the windows, smiling as they pass an elementary school, its students tumbling excitedly out onto the sidewalk, shouting and squealing. 

They make their way through the city and pull up to a stop at the base of Stark Tower, where a crowd has formed, probably after Tony’s light show the day before, curious if something else is going to happen. Happy pulls the car to a stop at the curb, and the crowd’s chatter increases. 

They’re holding posters of the Iron Man armor and clutching stuffed plushies and action figures, and beyond them, Tony can see flowers and candles and cards piled against the walls of the tower.

“It’s become a bit of a hub, since the battle,” Strange tells him, looking eager to get out of the car. “People come here to pay their respects to those who fought, or to say thank you.”

Tony shakes his head, and his voice feels muffled to his own ears when he speaks. “They don’t have anything to thank us for,” he says softly. 

Happy opens the door, and as Tony climbs out, a hush falls through the crowd. Strange gets out behind him, but all eyes are fixed on Tony, and Tony just stares owlishly back. Jesus, he was raised in front of an audience, but for the first time in his life, Tony has no idea what to do. 

But then, from somewhere in the back, there’s a murmur. It builds, ripples, spiraling in concentric circles, and then there is applause, growing like a rumble of thunder, and there are cheers, and smiles. The eyes Tony meets are still sad, still weary, but they’re smiling. And Tony gets it. They’re still afraid. Everyone is. Especially Tony. Even though the lost have been returned, they had been reminded of how easily everything could be taken away. It made them hold on all the more fiercely, eye each new factor all the more warily. Tony included. 

Strange appears at his side, giving a gentle tug on Tony’s elbow, and he finds himself enormously grateful for the wizard’s presence. He follows Strange’s lead through the crowd as it parts around them, and Tony’s heart begins to slow its racing. 

Just before they reach the door, a hand darts out and snags Tony’s left wrist, and he startles, turning to find a short, elderly woman emerge from the crowd, peering up at Tony. 

“Thank you,” she tells him, her voice gravelly but her eyes bright, her fingers tightening on his wrist, but he’s shaking his head before she even manages the first syllable. 

“Don’t thank me,” he says, “I hardly did it alone--”

“Thank _you_ ,” the woman insists. “Not just for this,” she tilts her head to the gauntlet, tucked tightly against Tony’s side, “but for everything. You made a choice, all those years ago, and because of that choice, you gave us hope, and you saved us all.” She gestures to a younger woman standing a little behind her, tears sliding down her cheeks, clutching a baby to her chest. Tony’s breath catches. 

He stares at the woman, for a long moment, and he can see the phone cameras trained on him in his peripherals, but he keeps his eyes on her as he speaks. “We all made that choice,” he tells her. “Every day, we all faced the loss, and the fear, and even when it looked like there wasn’t anything we could do,” he looks around at the crowd, past them to the gardens, to the construction, to the city pulling itself back up from the dust, “We kept fighting, and we’ll keep fighting. No matter what happened,” he gives a small smile, “it wasn’t me who brought hope. It was all of you.”

The woman, tears welling in her eyes, lets go of his wrist, and Tony nods to her. “Thank _you_ ,” he says to the crowd, and quickly follows Strange inside before anyone catches his own eyes blurring. 

Strange leaves him at the lobby elevator. “I have other business to attend to in the city,” he says in explanation. “I’ll be back to collect you in a few hours.” He vanishes through a golden hoop, and Tony is left to climb into the elevator alone. 

During the past weeks, there have been daily video calls with Pepper and Morgan as they had moved back into the Tower penthouse, the lake house returning to its status as a summer home. But while the calls have never been stilted, Morgan gushing happily about her new school and her classmates, showing him pictures she had drawn of Black Panther, who was her new favorite superhero, though they mostly just looked like black cats wearing crowns surrounded by stick figures with spears, representative of the Dora Milaje, there has been something… missing, gradually, between Tony and Pepper, once Morgan scampers off to play with her new (child-appropriate, Pepper-approved) tinker set. 

It is an awkwardness that had been mostly absent the last five years, as they were preoccupied with the aftermath of the Snap and bringing a child into the aftermath of the Snap, but it is still a familiar awkwardness, one that had stifled their relationship back in Malibu, or when Tony’s panic attacks spiraled out of control, or those last few months, when their conversations after Morgan went to bed consisted of thrilling subjects like composting. Now Pepper has Stark Industries to lead at the forefront of the rebuilding initiative, and Tony is left alone with his thoughts and his new glowing friends upstate, and the distance between them, growing with each day, isn’t all that surprising. 

So when the elevator lets him out on the top floor, and Morgan shrieks delightedly and crashes into his legs, Tony only has to take one look at Pepper’s expression as she leans in to kiss his cheek for him to say, “Yeah, I feel it too.” 

Her face shatters, sadness and relief and pity all rushing across her features at once. “I’m so sorry, Tony, I wanted so much--” 

Tony crouches down to Morgan’s height, promises her he’ll be in to look at all her inventions in five minutes, but he needs some alone time with Mommy. Morgan dashes off to ready everything, and Tony stands again to face Pepper. He gives her a smile, pulls her in for a hug.

“You’re the person I love most, Pep, and you always will be. But I think we both know we’re probably best when we’re…” he trails off, words failing. 

“We can’t say we didn’t try, right?” Pepper says against his cheek.

“Right.” 

She pulls back, swiping at her eyes. “We’ll still have daily phone calls with Morgan, and once things settle down a bit more solidly” --she casts a glance to Tony’s hand-- “we’ll have visits and dinners, and you’ll have an invite to every school play and choir concert and ballet recital--”

“We’ll be the best damn co-parents the world has ever seen,” Tony affirms, and Pepper laughs a watery laugh. 

He snags a tissue from a nearby table and passes it to her, feeling a bit misty-eyed himself, but he puts on his bravest face for her, even though he knows she’ll see right through it. She walks with him to Morgan’s room, but tugs him to a stop before he can slip through the doorway.

“You deserve to be happy, you know that, right, Tony?” she asks him, voice low. Tony dodges her eyes, flexes his right hand against his thigh. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, trying to turn, but she stops him. 

“Call him,” she says firmly. It’s all but an order. 

Tony dodges, feigning innocence. “Who?”

She leans in to kiss his cheek again. “You know perfectly well who. Remember, Tony Stark, you are the last person in the universe who can be called a coward.”

She lets him go, walking away to the kitchen and asking FRIDAY to turn on the coffee machine, and Tony inhales deeply, exhales, before ducking into Morgan’s room. 

  
He calls Rhodey’s cell three days later, because he may not be able to call himself a coward anymore, but he still is a master procrastinator when he wants to be. 

The stones offer a wave of comforting encouragement as the phone rings, to which Tony rolls his eyes, because the last thing his life needs are more matchmakers, and when Rhodey picks up, Tony asks him to pass the phone to Steve before the guy can get a word in edgewise.

“Fucking finally,” Rhodey mutters, but before Tony can squawk his indignation, there’s Steve’s voice, tinny through the speaker but just what Tony has been desperate to hear these past weeks, and he revels in it, almost for a beat too long when Steve repeats his initial “Tony?”

“Y-yeah, hi,” Tony stammers, because he’s as nervous as a fourteen-year-old asking his crush to homecoming. 

“Hi,” Steve huffs a laugh. “Are you okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m okay, I’m good, going a little stir-crazy with the O Great and Powerful Oz and the nutty professor up here, but, ah, I’m good, I’m-- how are you? Where are you guys?”

“Egypt,” Steve answers, and Tony paces the length of the workshop. The stones thrum at his knuckles. “But it’s our last day here, and we’re,” a pause, that has Tony’s pulse spiking, “coming back to the States tomorrow, to New York.”

Tomorrow is _very soon_ , jiminey christmas-- Tony inhales deeply, squeezing his eyes shut until he can see stars sparking across his vision, and he bucks the fuck up and opens his mouth and--

“Tony,” Steve beats him to it, “not that I’m not, ah, very happy to hear from you, but I think… I think we should probably have this conversation face to face? Is it— is it okay if I come by, tomorrow?”

“Is it o— of course it’s okay, Cap, this is—” your home, Tony doesn’t say, but he thinks maybe Steve hears it anyway, because there’s a smile in his voice when he replies.

“Okay. I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah, Cap. Okay.”

Steve hangs up, and Tony does a little jazz-hand thing with his fingers to try and shake off the nerves, but only succeeds in exploding every light in the workshop, plummeting him into darkness. DUM-E gives a startled whir.

“Well, fuck.” 

Tomorrow comes painfully slowly. Tony doesn’t sleep a wink, just sits out on his balcony and doodles new constellations in the sky, hoping it’ll zap the nervous energy out of him so he can sleep a few hours, but no such luck. He watches dawn rise over the trees, pink and foggy, knowing he could make the hours go faster but also deciding not to fuck with things that don’t really need to be fucked with anymore, like time, and heads back inside to make himself some coffee.

Strange and Bruce shoot him knowing looks all day, until Tony thinks he’s one eyebrow wiggle from Bruce away from zapping off his bushy green eyebrows altogether. He says as much, but Bruce just laughs at him, but before Tony can, gah, turn him blue or something, FRIDAY gives a heads-up that there’s a quinjet landing on the tarmac.

Their little welcoming party heads out to meet the new arrivals, and Tony tucks his right arm behind his back instinctively, shifting antsily from foot to foot. 

The door lowers, and Rhodey, Barnes, and Wilson all climb down the ramp, and there’s Steve bringing up the rear, dressed in his civvies and eyes finding Tony right away, his expression doing complicated things, dancing between a smile and a frown and Tony just wants to smooth those new wrinkles from his forehead, but he’s swarmed by the others first as they all give him hugs in greeting. Strange and Bruce usher them all inside, leaving Tony and Steve alone on the runway. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, probably too long, before Steve huffs a laugh.

“Hi,” he says, and he steps forward and tugs Tony into a hug, those big strong arms wrapping around him and pressing him against his ridiculously firm chest, and it takes every ounce of Tony’s strength not to turn into butter in the embrace. He hesitantly returns the hug, careful to hold his right hand at a hover above Steve’s shirt, not touching. 

“Hi,” Tony echoes, voice muffled in the fabric of Steve’s shoulder, and Steve pulls away, his grin wide. 

“Ah, it’s. You look-- good,” Steve manages, and Tony feels his entire face heat. He pulls his hands behind his back again, and sees Steve glance down to track the movement, brow furrowing slightly. And fuck, right, he probably definitely doesn’t want to see the stones, not when the reason Tony has them is the reason Steve can’t go back and—

Steve opens his mouth, and Tony wonders if he’s gonna comment and desperately wishes he won’t, because he didn’t think it would happen so soon, but instead, Steve asks, “Do you want-- do you maybe want to go for a walk?” He jerks his head towards the lake.

Tony blinks at him, before nodding. “Lead the way, Cap.” 

They amble off towards the rocky shore, the ground crunching softly underneath them, as the first signs of fall are starting to spring up around the Compound. Traces of gold and red are scattered in the trees, and a few early leaves are already drifting gently to the grass. The air holds a slight chill, but not enough for Tony to want to go back inside, the ice of Siberia and the cold vacuum of space lingering just at the corners of his mind but held off by the other presence now taking up residence in his skull. The stones send a wave of warmth down through his bones, and he exhales slowly, drawing Steve’s eyes briefly, before they flicker away. 

Steve doesn’t make any move to fill the awkward silence as they reach the water, but Tony really can’t handle the quiet so he scrambles for something, anything, and blurts the first thing that pops into his mind, which, unfortunately, is, “How are the whales?” 

Steve, momentarily startled, breaks into a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “The whales are good.”

“Good, good. That’s good,” Tony hums. They’re in danger of falling over a cliff into another awkward silence, when Steve saves him, like he always does, _God Tony do you have to be such a mush_ \--

“How are Pepper and Morgan?” he asks. 

Tony scratches the bridge of his nose. “Good. Morgan is good, luckily more like her mom than me with each day, but Pepper and I, we-- consciously uncoupled,” he says, stealing a phrase from some celebrity Pepper liked. Steve looks at him blankly, though, so Tony translates. “We split up.”

“Oh,” Steve says, voice coloring with surprise, and his eyes do that complicated thing again, the flicker that Tony can’t read. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Tony assures him. “It’s best for everyone. I think we were headed for it, plus like, who wants to spend that much time with-- well, I think this was--” he pulls his right hand out from behind his back on instinct, “the straw that finally broke the camel’s--” but of course the movement catches Steve’s attention, and the words die in Tony’s mouth as he panics, but before he can smuggle it back out of sight Steve’s hand reaches out and snags the gauntlet around the wrist.

It is, Tony realizes with a start, the first time someone has touched the gauntlet, let alone without any hesitation, and Tony’s brain short-circuits. 

“I saw your speech,” Steve tells him. 

Tony, his brain providing a helpful blank blue screen of death as it reboots, can only blink at him. Steve elaborates. 

“You, ah, outside the Tower, with Strange. Talking about hope.” 

Tony finds his voice. “Oh.” 

“I really liked, well--” there’s a pause, Steve’s fingers dancing lightly against the metal circling his wrist, and Tony can feel it, is hyper-aware of the sensation. “I’ve been thinking about loss, lately.”

But before he can say anything else, Tony interrupts in a frantic rush, saying, “I’m so sorry, Cap, I tried-- I tried seeing if I could send you back, but-- I can’t--” _because it’s all intent, isn’t it,_ and Tony, try as he might, can’t make himself want to be in a world without Steve, not again, not ever, but he’s maybe not a coward anymore but he’ll never stop being selfish, fuck, _fuck_ \--

“Tony,” Steve interrupts. His other hand grabs Tony’s left, skin against skin, and Tony’s pulse skyrockets. Steve’s eyes are far too sincere. “It’s okay,” he says, but Tony just shakes his head.

“I’m sorry you didn’t… get to be with Peggy,” he says quietly. “If I could, I would-- in a heartbeat--”

“Tony,” Steve says again, his smile wistful. “Thank you, but. Seeing her was kind of closure, you know? She had a new life, and it made me realize… so do I.” He shrugs, eyes flicking to Tony’s and away and back again. “I realized I don’t really want to live in a timeline without Tony Stark.” 

Which-- what? Tony stares at him, uncomprehending, so Steve, ever the bravest Avenger, lets go of Tony’s hand, and brings his fingers up to Tony’s jaw to brush across his stubble, and leans down to close the distance between them until their foreheads are pressed together. Tony’s eyes flutter closed, because he’s come to the conclusion that he must be dreaming, and he doesn’t want to wake up. 

“You,” Steve says softly, his breath warm and sweet against Tony’s skin, “are a menace, and exceedingly obtuse, and have no idea just how much this world, how much _I_ need you, because you are also the most selfless, generous, forgiving, stupidly self-sacrificing—“ and Tony huffs a disbelieving laugh, and he can _feel_ Steve smile against his cheek, because he’s that close, and if Tony would just tilt his head slightly to the left their lips would touch, and so, he does. 

Steve gasps into the kiss, crushing their mouths together, arms snaking around Tony’s waist to press the length of their bodies close, until there’s no space left between them. Steve’s mouth is soft and plush and insistent, and everything Tony thought it would be and more, and he raises his right hand to twine into the hair at the back of Steve’s neck, not caring about the gauntlet, only wanting to hold on forever. The stones spark like fireworks in his brain. 

When they finally, reluctantly pull apart for air, Tony’s eyes open without his say so, but Steve doesn’t disappear. He’s smiling back at Tony, eyes impossibly fond. There’s a rainbow haze around him, and Tony looks to see the gauntlet glowing, where it’s carded through Steve’s hair.

The world set itself to rights once more. 

  
  


Tony doesn’t know what’s ahead of them. He doesn’t know if Thanos was the last big bad they’ll ever face, or if something bigger is just around the corner. He doesn’t know if the stones will stay with Tony forever, or if he’ll eventually explode or his eyeballs will start bleeding or who knows what. 

But he knows he isn’t afraid, and he isn’t alone, and no matter what comes, they’ll face it together.

**Author's Note:**

> Me walking out of Endgame, tear-streaked and sweaty: yeah, no.
> 
> Really loved the movie but there’s nothing and no one I love more than Tony Stark so SUCK IT MARVEL HE LIVES FOREVER NOW.
> 
> Look Redhead writes another Immortal Tony story 3 years later lmfao we’re thriving ! I went a lil light on the IronKids cause I have a sad IronKids fic in the oven that will Not feature an immortal T-boy but hey masochism is the new self-care.
> 
> (YES the title is from ME! by taylor swift but gO BACK AND LISTEN TO IT WITH A STONY MINDSET AND TRY AND TELL ME IM SEEING THINGS i am seeing things i need a nap)
> 
> do not own avengers/profit/etc etc


End file.
